I’ve never been a friend of coal.  When I was a child, most everyone heated their homes with coal. On school days, I would bundle up in my snowsuit for the one mile walk.  The skies in winter were clouded with a gray haze.  You could smell the coal smoke in the air.  No one gave it a second thought.  It was a fact of life.  On the worst days, I would get home from school and see a ring around my neck when I took off my snowsuit.  That was the place where my cap rode up, exposing my neck to the air.  Coal gave me a dirty neck.

I was a sickly child, losing many school days due to colds, flu, and respiratory infections. My parents had me in and out of the doctor’s office all winter, trying to figure out why.  They tested my hemoglobin, checked my heart, and listened to my lungs.  No one could understand what was wrong with me.  They never mentioned allergies or air pollution  from coal smoke as a  possible cause. All I know is that when I went away to school, I was healthier.  By that time, I suppose, fewer people had coal furnaces.

Coal mining is a major political issue in Indiana.  The coal industry is doing everything it can to keep the mines from closing. .   Any  Hoosier  politician who wants to win an election must promise to try and keep  them open.  To this day, most of the electricity in this country is produced by coal.  Why? Because it’s plentiful and cheap, and coal miners aren’t interested in retraining for new jobs.

The other day I was waiting in my car for a train to pass at a crossing. Yes, we’re a train town, which means you always have an excuse to be late for appointments.   To fight the boredom, I started counting the coal cars but I gave up at 50.  Every railway car on that train was loaded with coal.

The state of Indiana does offer a few tax breaks and incentives for clean energy, but  It doesn’t look like we’re too worried about climate change here in Indiana.